Martina della Valle
Werke
CORRESPONDENCE
CORRESPONDENCE is the result of an exchange of words and images held with a group of migrant women via chat for a few months at the beginning of 2021. Of different ages and origins, they were all attending the Italian language school at the Presidio Caritas in Pachino.
At a time when social closure accentuates even more the isolation in which many women already usually find themselves living, Correspondence focuses on the encounter, the sharing of the story and an active participation in the creative process.
The correspondence held, created a narrative in fragments of the everyday life of farm workers and their families,
the integration full of adversity of a workforce, necessary to the Sicilian agricultural sector and often a victim of exploitation.
Glimpses of landscapes, objects, suggested presences and small gestures constitute a subjective diary, an archive of fragments of a reality that is often invisible, even more so because observed from the point of view of women.
Some of the images taken by the protagonists of the project with their mobile phones were reworked, laser printed on transparent paper and transformed into black and white negatives. Details of others were extrapolated to expose a series of large silk sheets with cyanographic emulsion to sunlight. A video documents the action carried out by the group of women among the greenhouses of Pachino.
One flower, one leaf
“One flower, One leaf” is an ongoing archive of still-lifes resulting from participative events held in different cities, to investigate spontaneous flora. During the workshop the part-takers are asked to produce the compositions that become the subject of my photos. This exploration takes place on a selected area of the urban landscape: within a guided walk the part-tackers observe and select diverse spontaneous materials (plants, flowers, branches, stones..).
Supported by me and an ikebana teacher, each participant will then realize an arrangement with the findings. The resulting series of still-lifes compose a photographic limited edition based on the experience, and an ideal portrait of the specific environment, in a specific moment of time and period of the year.
The chosen locations are ruderal areas; green places not considered in the urban design, but left wild and unattended. This areas are particularly rich in species, very representative of the migration paths of the flora. Such spots are often locate near water basins, rivers, or close to big streets. Waterfronts, highways’ side walks, areas left unconstructed or urban borders in general, are for its own nature a place of exchange and encounters, a first meeting point with newcomers. This applies to people but also to plant species. Ruderal areas play a special role in the development of the urban weeds, being a very dynamic and accommodating incubator for pioneer species.
Until now the project took place at:
O.f,o.l.#1: 24,25|09|2016 Dryphoto arte contemporanea, Prato (Italy)
O.f,o.l.#2: 03|12|2016 MAXXI Museum, Rome (Italy)
O.f,o.l.#3: 19,20|06|2017 AR/GE Kunst, Bolzano (IT)
O.f,o.l.#4: 20-21|01|2018 Akvarellmuseet, Skärhamn, (Sweden)
O.f,o.l.#5: 18|09|2018 UNSEEN Amsterdam, (NL)
URBAN IMPRESSIONS
The impressions of what has once been the stage of private stories; intimate domestic interiors brought to the public. The project was born in 2006 as a photographic research on the traces left from extinct buildings on the skin of the walls of the city. Sort of an urban "epidermis" that records the changes and shows the evanescent prints of a disappeared life. From the photographic series realized between Milan, Florence, Paris, Thessaloniki and Berlin, the project has become a site-specific installation project. Fragments of the impressions left by the domestic interiors are reproduced in real size in new spaces: big black and white wall papers, in different dimensions and shapes which show the details of the life the wall has been living in the past.
Eckdaten
martinadellavalle.info
Fotografie, Installation, Konzeptkunst, Partizipation
* 21.03.1981
Martina della Valle develops images, situations and photographs. Like a darkroom, her artistic research is based on the fundamentals of photographic technique. In her research she works with different media which she combines with collaborative work formats to produce site- specific installations and printed matter.
Martina della Valle explores the image of time, its flow and stratification in the memory of places, on the skin
of things, or in fleeting events. The ephemeral, the untimely, the imponderable are captured by the artist’s gaze in images (photographs, videos, installations) that present themselves as “traces” of a phenomenology of the world that is often invisible and underground, which lies between the charm of everyday life and its silent visibility.
Photography is a latent image, a “leap out of the course of time”, a deposit of light and dust that eternalizes the temporality of the world in an instant, showing a present that is slipping into the past (in its memory) and that brings with it something of its earlier future. The photographic instant is the moment of disappearance of what is about to happen, and what will come. This second memory is the extra-temporal dimension investigated by Martina della Valle with her gaze turned backwards, to the “ruins” of a reality that lives beyond history.
Vita
Martina della Valle (Florence, Italy, 1981) graduated in 2003 at the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan, Italy.
In 2007 she was selected to participate in the Advanced Course in Visual Arts at the Ratti Foundation in Como and for a two-month residency at the DENA Foundation at the Centre des Recollets in Paris. In October 2009 she was invited to the AIR Onomichi Residency Programme in Onomichi (Hiroshima, Japan). In 2014, she developed a work for the Mois de Photo with the Italian Cultural Institute in Paris. In 2021 she researched in Pachino (Sicily) to exhibit the results of her stay at the Ragusa Photo Festival in the same year. Since 2022, she has been in charge of the Satellit project space in Berlin.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024
- CORRESPONDENCE: SATELLIT, Berlin (D)
2020 - MALLOW ROOTS- Palazzina Indiano Arte, Florence (I)
2018 - UNEXPECTED NEIGHBORS: Vogue photofest, NonostanteMarras, Milan (I)
- One flower one leaf: Nordiska Akvarell Museet, Skärhamn (S) 2016- Wabi-Sabi: DRYPHOTO arte contemporanea, Prato (I)
2015 - FRAMED MEMORIES: METRONOM Gallery, Modena (I)
2014 - Martina della Valle: Mois de la photo, Italian cultural Inst, Paris (F)
2012 - SLENDER TIME: METRONOM Project Room, Modena (I)
2011 - BLU, Berlin Episode: Galerie KUHN, Berlin (D)
- TIME DUST: by Marinella Paderni, METRONOM, Modena (I)
- BLU: ARTOPIA Gallery, Milan
2009 - MINERVA PROJECT: Artopia Gall, ex Minerva, MiArt, Milan (I)
2007 - Martina della Valle: ARTOPIA Gallery, Milan (I)
2005 - Impronte: curated by Silvio Wolf, ARTOPIA Gall, Milan (I)
- Stanze: A+M bookstore, Milan (I)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
- IDENTITÁ OLTRE CONFINE: Italian Cultural Inst. Vilnius (LT)
- IDENTITÁ OLTRE CONFINE: Farnesina coll. Italian Cultural Inst. Berlin (D)
- MISE EN SCENE: Collezione Pizzi, Palazzo del Duca, Senigallia (I)
2024 - MAPPA-MONDO: Palazzo Butera, Palermo (I)
- FOTOGRAFIA E FEMMINISMI: Fondazione Sabe, Ravenna (I)
- MATERIELLE KOLLABORATIONEN, ZAK – Spandau, Berlin (D)
2023 - MOONFLOWER: OCCULTO MAGAZINE, MISSREAD, Berlin (D)
- CYNOTYPE URBAN HERBARIUM: (workshop) PICTURE BERLIN, Berlin (D)
2021 - EYES ON TOMORROW: Italian Culture Inst, Mexico City (M)
- ACT#1: Salon am Moritzplatz, Berlin, Germany (D) - CORRESPONDENCE- Ragusa Foto Festival, Ragusa (I)
- RECONSTRUCION Giovane Fotografia Italiana, Reggio Emilia (I)
- I LOVE THE GALLERY: Rita Urso Gallery, Milan (I)
2020 - Nature in Play: METRONOM, Modena (I)
- Resistence&sensibility: Fotografie Forum, Frankfurt, Germany
2019 - 20YEARS FARNESINA COLLECTION, Ministero degli Esteri, Rome (I)
- THE GARDEN, METRONOM Pop-Up: The Koppel Project, London (UK)
- Sustainable Art: by Diego Mantoan, NYU Tandon School, NY (USA)
2018 - HARU NO NIWA: Nakata Museum Onomichi, Japan (JP)
- PREMIO BUGATTI SEGANTINI: Villa Brivio, Nova Milanese (I)
- PASSAGGI D’ACQUA: Acquario Civico, Milan (I)
2017 - Arrangements: AR/GE Kunst, Bozen (I)
- DR/OP: Artist Alliance, Singapore (SR)
- Antologia, Gall METRONOM, Modena (I)
2016 - Im dämmerschlaf: Km0 Gallery, Innsbruck, (A)
- DR/OP: Komyoji-Kaikan, Onomichi (JP)
- La Pelle: Officina, by Fondaco, Bruxelles (B)
- Through the Looking glass: Gall. METRONOM, Modena (I)
- Sichtung Insel#2: Piano Alto, by Peninsula, Berlin (D)
2015 - Exploring Resilience: Peninsula at Mila Galerie, Berlin (D)
- CIRCULATION(s) Les projections, Centquatre, Paris (F)
2014 - In Between: Gall. METRONOM, Modena (I)
- Dot.Land: Peninsula Association, A Space, Berlin (D)
- Collezione Farnesina, Ministero degli Esteri, Rome (I)
- Still Frames: Fond. Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice (I)
2013 - AIR VIEW: AIR Onomichi Art Collection, Onomichi (JP)
- Echoes: II II//I Hochstrasse45, Berlin (D)
- Words Through Time: by Federica Tattoli, ARTOPIA, Milan (I)
- DAB, Design for Artshop and Bookshop, MAXXI, Rome (I)
- Post Fata Resurgo: International ceramic museum, Faenza (I)
- The Food Project. The Shape of Taste: MART, Rovereto (I)
2012 - WUNDERcamera: Gall. METRONOM, Modena (I)
- MadeInFilandia: residency program, Pieve a Presciano, (I)
- Abitanti/Abitati: Dolomiti Contemporanee, Taibon Agordino (I)
- ITaliens: Volkswagen Pavillon, Wolfsburg (D)
2011 - Disappearence: ART Verona, Verona (I)
- Memoria variabile: Galleria Milano, Milan (I)
- Festival Circulations: Galerie Cotè Seine, Paris, (F)
2010 - ITaliens: Italian Ambassy Berlin (D)
- The Belly of an architect: Jarach gallery, Venice (I)
- Festa del Migrante: NEON, Bologna (I)
- Niente da vedere tutto da vivere: Ist del marmo, Carrara (I)
- Go Away White: Jarach gallery, Venice (I)
- Al di là delle apparenze opache: FotoEuropea Fest,Reggio Emilia (I)
2009
-Da Guarene all’Etna: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d'Alba (I) - Air Onomichi: residency program, Onomichi, (Jp)
- Biennale di Monza: Serrone, Monza (I)
- D.A.B.: Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (I)
- POINT OF VIEW: Jarach gallery, Venice (I)